In From The Cold
by Sue Denham
Summary: It’s not always easy to pick up the pieces of your life
1. Chapter 1

_A little something that I started whilst on a flight out to New York, hence the setting. Hoped to post it before Christmas but the fates conspired against me._

* * *

Lucas took a glance at his watch as he threaded his way through the bustle of early morning commuters, and hoped that he wasn't cutting things too fine. His journey had been a nightmare from the start. The overnight flight into JFK had been delayed and then he'd been held up further by an officer from Inland Security who took exception to the fact that the issue date on his passport was so recent. He'd not realised just how tough the security measures had become in the U.S and how any little detail could now be regarded with suspicion.

Once clear of the airport he'd caught the Air train and then the subway; the E train taking him all the way into Manhattan. The journey had taken an interminable amount of time and he'd found himself drifting asleep with the motion of the carriage; so much so that he almost missed his connection at 53rd. He'd had to make a leap for the doors as they were beginning to shut and earned himself some sarcastic comments from the locals.

Now he was making his way with as much haste as he could towards the rendezvous point that had been designated. It wasn't his idea of a good meeting place; it was somewhere too open, too full of people - a meeting that could be too easily ruined by the chance actions of any one of a thousand people, but the place had been stipulated by the person he was going to meet and he'd had to accept.

He finally reached the end of the passageway and turned onto the main concourse, taking in the impressive spectacle that was Grand Central. It had been years since he had last had cause to visit the place but the impact of it on his senses was still enough to take his breath away.

He quickly pulled himself out of his reverie and began scanning the sea of faces that were surging past him; each one on their own private journey - world weary commuters begrudgingly altering their course to avoid walking into the gaping tourists who seemed to choose to stand in the busiest section of the station with unerring regularity. He cursed silently beneath his breath as he failed to spot the object of his search. He worked his way through the early morning crowd, heading for the staircase at the far end, hoping that gaining a higher viewpoint would improve his chances of finding his contact.

Dodging past the couple who were gazing up in awe at the constellations painted onto the high vaulted ceiling, he reached the top of the stairs and took in the panorama; once again scanning the crowds.

From his new vantage point, he picked her out almost immediately. She stood apart from the hustle and bustle of the morning commuters, somehow separate from them; existing in her own private little bubble of space, immune to the crowds' hurrying and impatient desires to be elsewhere.

He knew that she wouldn't recognise him and so he took advantage of a few extra seconds to study her. She'd changed a little from the photograph in her file; her hair was worn a little longer, and despite the thick black coat that was wrapped around her, it looked as though she'd lost weight.

His attention was drawn to her hands which were fiddling nervously with a copy of The New York Times, constantly twisting and turning the rolled up paper as she scanned the area ahead of her, obviously looking for a face that she recognised. As he watched he saw her glance up at the clock above the information booths.

He made his way swiftly down the stairs towards her, a part of him carrying the feeling that she was likely to bolt at any moment. She looked through him as he approached, not seeming to take in the features of anyone she didn't recognise. He made his way round another group of tourists, pretending not to hear their request that he take a photo of them, and slowed to a halt directly in front of her and held out a hand in greeting. "Lucas North," he introduced himself, noting the way that after the initial flinch of surprise, her expression became one of complete neutrality.

The handshake she returned could best be described as 'polite' and she was quick to break the contact.

"I ... I have the translation," she gestured towards the large black bag that was slung over her left shoulder.

"Good, thank you."

She reached into the bag and made to pull out the package she'd prepared for him.

"That can wait," he told her in a quiet tone. "I need to talk to you about something else."

"Look, I did the translation work that you asked for... can't we just exchange things here and we can both get on with our days."

She pulled an A4 buff envelope out of her bag and held it out towards him.

Lucas looked down at it and then up at her again. "I take it you understood the contents?"

She pulled a face. "It would have been a little hard to translate if I didn't know what it said!"

"That wasn't what I meant."

She shook her head. "I translate documents, it's what I do. I don't take any interest in their contents. If I did I'd soon find myself without any employment." She offered the envelope to him again. "Please, just take it."

"You seem awfully eager to be out of here." He picked up on her nervousness.

"Well some of us have better things to do than chewing the fat with a complete stranger."

"I'm not a stranger," Lucas told her quietly. "Perhaps we could go somewhere a little less public."

She shook her head more vigorously this time.

"I'm sorry Mr.... North, but I really do have somewhere else to be."

She indicated the envelope again, and once again he ignored it.

Finally seeming to lose her patience, she dropped the envelope and made to move away.

Lucas placed a hand on her arm to prevent her leaving, hoping that the action wouldn't attract too much attention. She attempted to pull away but his grip was firm and he leant in towards her. "I really do have to talk to you. You can choose the location but this conversation really does need to take place." He managed to meet her gaze for the first time. "I know from your presence here that you decoded the message in the document. You've come this far...why not see it through."

He felt her relax slightly.

"I don't have long."

"This won't take long...but we really should find somewhere quieter."

"Of course, of course." She paused and Lucas noticed the way that she scanned the crowds around them again.

"Jo was hoping to be the one to make the trip," he told her, "but she was called away on other business."

"What?" she asked distractedly, her mind already working out the best route away from their current location.

"Jo," he continued, "wanted to be here, said to say that....."

As he watched her eyes flitting around the crowd, he realised that she wasn't listening to a word he was saying, her mind obviously engaged in other thoughts.

"There's a coffee shop... about a block away; it's.. uh...it's a little quieter there." She shrugged her shoulders. "What am I saying, this is New York, there are coffee shops on pretty much every block...but I guess that you knew that." She added the final phrase almost apologetically.

Lucas smiled and shook his head. "Your knowledge of New York is going to be better than mine. You could say that I've been out of circulation for a while; the last time I was here the subway still took tokens."

"Right. Fine." She pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against and led the way smoothly through the bustling crowds, heading purposefully for the exit on East 42nd. She didn't break pace until she reached the heavy exit doors and then turned right into the bitingly cold New York day. Lucas followed close behind her, noting the way that she dropped her head as she weaved her way through the mass of people intent on their last minute Christmas shopping, seemingly wanting to make as little contact with anyone as possible. He turned up his collar against the freezing blast of frozen air that buffeted his face and did his best to keep pace with her, if he lost her in the throng of shoppers he knew that he'd never stand a chance of finding her again.

* * *

Ten minutes later he was sat opposite her in a small Italian café. She had ignored the inviting signs of the major coffee house chains with their crowded interiors and had led him straight to this old café that was almost empty despite its central location. And now she sat nervously in silence, turning a mug of tea round and round on the plastic placemat in front of her, obviously wanting to ask him what he was doing there but seemingly unable to find her voice. After two years in the wilderness he was more than a little surprised by her silence.

"How have you been?" he broke the quiet and watched as her eyes flashed up to meet his briefly before returning to the slowly turning mug.

"Can't we just…skip the pleasantries?" she asked him; there was no trace of anger in her voice, just a desire to hear the news that he had for her. "I'm sure you have other things to do."

Wordlessly he opened up the bag that was at his feet and withdrew a buff coloured envelope, placing it flat on the table before sliding it across the surface towards her.

She regarded it suspiciously. "Do I want to know what's in there?"

He nodded. "It's the reason I was asked to come out here and make contact."

"How did you find me anyway?" There was definitely a note of accusation in her voice now, her unspoken question demanding to know how long they had had her watched for.

"It was a chance encounter...serendipity if you will."

She shot him a glance that told him that she didn't believe in such things.

He raised his hands in what he hoped she would read as a gesture of innocence. "You were spotted by an asset and he reported his sighting back to the Grid." Lucas neglected to add that all trusted assets had been tasked to keep their eyes peeled for her for the last few months. That it had taken them so long to find her spoke volumes about her ability to hide from the world.

He watched her hands as they continued to busy themselves with the mug; the constant turning of it not letting up for a second.

He tapped the envelope. "Don't you want to know why I've come all this way to see you?"

Her shoulders shrugged with the slightest of movements and her head dipped lower. She began to chew her bottom lip nervously as though she were afraid of what the envelope might contain.

Realising her fears, he pulled the envelope back across the table and slid a finger under the seal, tearing it open. He pulled a passport from amongst the paperwork and placed it back down upon the buff envelope, before pushing the package back towards her.

He watched as her eyes widened in surprise. She seemed transfixed by the maroon coloured passport but made no effort to pick it up.

"It is yours," he reassured her, hoping that she would understand what he meant.

She shook her head and let out a short laugh. "To say that I wasn't expecting that would be something of an understatement."

He noticed however that she still made no move to pick it up.

"It's ok," he told her gently. "I'm here to tell you, you can come home."

"Is it?" she queried, meeting his gaze fully for the first time and fixing him with a piercing look. "Is it ok? Just like that and it's all over…as though the last two years of my life never happened? Seems a little anti-climactic somehow."

He smiled wryly, understanding the disbelief and confusion that must be running through her mind. "It's never just like that," he told her sincerely. "But you have to start somewhere."

She gave him a thin smile and returned her attention to her drink; taking a mouthful of tea and pulling a face at the taste, obviously not impressed with the flavour.

An uncomfortable silence fell between the occupants of the table. The waitress approached, coffee pot in hand but Lucas waved her away, wanting to give the woman sitting opposite him plenty of time to let the information sink in without being distracted. She seemed not to comprehend the offer that was now on the table; he had just handed her her life back but that was a fact that seemed to have passed her by.

He was working out how to restart the conversation when the silence was abruptly broken by a blast of music from the CD player behind the counter. Lucas noted the way that she jumped at the sudden sound, tea spilling over the rim of the mug and dripping onto the table top. She reached quickly to pull a napkin from the dispenser but only succeeded in knocking the salt over. He heard the low curse from beneath her breath and leant forward, reaching past her shaking hands and pulling two white napkins free. He dabbed at the spillage and she mumbled her thanks.

"There are a few things I have to tell you," Lucas decided that he had to deal with the unpleasant part of the meeting straight away. He'd learnt from bitter experience how finding things out at a later date could be more painful. Her eyes drifted up to meet his briefly.

"Seeing as yours was a face that I didn't recognise, I was guessing that there had been a few personnel changes."

Lucas closed his eyes wished that there was an easier way to break the news to her.

"We lost Adam," he told her quietly, deciding that the best thing to do was to stick to the bare facts. He watched as her grip on the mug tightened and she began slowly to turn it again, her attention seemingly bound up in the liquid as it moved in slow swirls around the rim.

"How?"

It was a simple question and asked so quietly that he nearly missed it.

"There was an attempt to disrupt Remembrance Sunday," he began to explain and then saw her nod.

"The car bomb," she supplied the detail. She raised her head and caught the quizzical expression on his face. "I still keep an eye on the news, I might not be able to be there but it doesn't mean that I cut myself off completely. Whenever there's an unnamed victim, part of me always wonders if... if it's someone I know...knew," she corrected herself sadly and Lucas wasn't sure if she was referring to all her old friends as being something to be considered in the past tense. He watched as, with shaking hands, she took another mouthful from the mug and grimaced. "They really don't understand how to make tea here, I mean it shouldn't be hard, teabag, hot water, dash of milk, not exactly a complicated combination of ingredients but somehow they never seem to get it right...."

She was rambling now, Lucas realised that she was desperately trying to find a way to fill the silence. Silence would mean that her mind would have to process the news that she'd just received; the longer she kept it at bay, the longer that Adam would be alive in her version of the world. He sat silently opposite her and waited for her monologue to finish.

"I'm sorry," he told her honestly as she finally subsided into silence. "I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news."

After a few moments in which neither of them spoke, she raised her head to meet his gaze.

"There's more, isn't there?"

Lucas shifted uncomfortably in his seat, recognising the fear in her voice

She let out a shaky breath and looked up towards the ceiling. "Just tell me."

"Zaf."

He watched as she closed her eyes, screwing them tight so as not to allow the tears to fall. She wrapped her arms around herself and took a few steadying breaths as she tried to take in the news.

Lucas looked down at his own drink and wished that he hadn't accepted the job. These sorts of trips were always the most awkward, the most uncomfortable. He understood why he'd been tasked with it; they wanted someone from Section D to go, but not someone who had any emotional attachment to the person involved. He knew that he could walk away from the situation at the end of the day and not be fazed by it; he wasn't sure that the same would be true if Jo had accepted the job.

Bringing someone back into the fold was never easy, as he well knew. There were always those who made it and those who were never able to make peace with the lost time and return.

The pair of them sat in silence, the cheery sound of the Christmas songs and the clattering of plates from the kitchen at odds with the atmosphere that was growing between them. He knew that there were questions she wanted to ask; the sense of nervous expectation was palpable in the air.

"I heard that Ros was dead."

Her voice broke into Lucas's thoughts and he was suddenly on the alert. "Where did you hear that?"

She smiled at him wanly. "The Times... I... I keep an eye on the personal column...you know, just…just in case."

He felt a tug of guilt; a part of him realised that she'd been waiting to hear from them all this time, waiting patiently and trusting that someday they would send her news. He wanted to tell her that she'd just missed their messages, but he realised that she'd know straight away that he was lying.

"Ros **was **dead," Lucas explained with a wry smile, "But she's back now."

"Should have guessed that hell wouldn't want her," she remarked flatly; Lucas noting that she didn't ask him to explain the situation, just accepting what he said at face value.

He glanced at the clock on the wall; time wasn't on his side. He knew he'd have to push the meeting along if he was to stand a hope of getting to his next arranged rendezvous.

"Take the passport," he advised her.

She met his gaze for a fleeting moment and then returned her attention to the tea in front of her; turning the mug slowly, watching the liquid as it lapped gently against the sides.

"There is just the one small problem with all this," she pointed out. "As far as everyone is concerned, I'm dead, I, I think that… just perhaps, my turning up out of the blue might come as something of a shock to a few people…although I'm sure the Inland Revenue won't waste any time in hitting me for back taxes."

"We can sort all that out," Lucas tried to reassure her. He could see the way that she was starting to get more and more agitated at the prospect of getting her life back again.

"Can we?" she argued. "What are you going to do? Bring me back as my own identical twin!"

She glared at him for a few moments. "Do you want to be the one who tries to explain things to my mother?" She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. "She thinks I'm dead…. You think that after all this time I can just stroll back into the family home and say 'Hi Mum, I'm back. Sorry that the past two years have been a lie, but everything's fine now, only I can't tell you what really happened, even if I wanted to'." She took a deep breath. "She'll have grieved and she'll have moved on, I can't put her through anymore; I **won't** put her through anymore."

Lucas met her eyes; they were wide and brimming with unshed tears. He wished that there was an easier way to break the next piece of news. She stared at him for a few seconds before the realisation hit; he could feel the silent pleading in the air, the unspoken demand that he tell her that everything was going to be fine.

"I'm sorry," he told her as gently as he could.

Those two words were enough and he watched as her eyes dropped to her hands, which were now clasped nervously together on the table.

She forced down the tears that were starting to prick at the corner of her eyes and struggled to retain control. "How?"

Lucas placed his palms flat on the table. "I don't think that this is the right time…" he began but she cut him short.

"You're sitting here and you're telling me that my mother's dead, but you don't think that this is the right time for **you** to talk about it?" her tone was shrill, not caring that she was now attracting the attention of everyone in the room. Her whole frame was shaking with emotion; trying to come to terms with the earth-shattering news that she'd just received. She pushed the chair away from the table and reached behind her for her coat. "I can't do this, I, I can't do any of this. Not now."

"Ruth, please."

She let out a laugh, which threatened to turn into a sob.

"I've not heard anyone call me that in a bloody long time," she confessed, "I'm not sure just who she is anymore."

"You're still you…inside."

"Am I?" she questioned angrily. "I'm not sure I know anymore."

"I'm not saying that it's going to be easy…."

"Good, good. I'm glad that's not what you're saying. I'm glad that you're not expecting me to just sit here and accept everything that you're telling me without batting an eyelid." She let out a shaky breath and forced herself to keep things together. "I don't know if I can go back, not now, I don't know if I'll ever want to go back. "

"I know that this is all hard to take…"

"Hard to take? Hard to take?" She let out a long breath. "Sometimes I wonder if you people know what you sound like!"

In one fluid action she rose to her feet and headed for the door, pulling her coat around her shoulders; the passport remaining untouched on the table.

Lucas swore beneath his breath and made to follow her, picking up the passport and dropping a ten dollar bill onto the table. Grabbing his bag he raced from the cafe and out onto the crowded sidewalk. He scanned the faces around him, trying to spot Ruth, but she was nowhere to be seen. He tried to stand still and scan the area properly but the heaving throng of shoppers were not prepared to let one individual block their way. He found himself jostled and pushed first one way and then another.

He felt a tug on his arm, but when he turned his head he saw that the hand belonged to a volunteer from the Salvation Army who was ringing a small hand bell for all she was worth and entreating everyone to spare a few coins. The ringing of the bell was incessant and doing battle with the Christmas songs that were blaring out from the store next to her. Lucas pulled away from her and tried to block out all the sounds and focus on the task in hand. He searched the faces again in desperation, hoping to spot her... but she was gone, swallowed up by the city and he knew that he didn't stand a chance of being able to find her again.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A little later than advertised, here's part two. **_

* * *

Ruth ducked her head lower beneath the upturned collar of her coat, trying to keep out the freezing chill of the wind that was buffeting against her. The temperature had been hanging around the 2 degree mark for the past week, but the wind chill factor made it seem that much colder. She shivered as another icy blast assaulted her, and wished for nothing more than to be out of the cold and back in the relative warmth of her apartment. Her arms were aching with the weight of the shopping bags she was carrying. She'd put off leaving her building for as long as possible, but when she'd pulled herself to her feet and opened the cupboards, she'd realised that there truly wasn't anything left to eat. Wrapping herself in her heavy coat she'd reluctantly headed out into the freezing darkness.

The last three days had been nothing but a haze in her mind; she'd gotten home from the cafe before her emotions had completely overtaken her. The tears had started to fall as she'd left the subway and she'd been unable to contain them fully; ducking her head down and ignoring the looks that she received from the passersby on the street as she hurried along. She'd climbed the stairs to her apartment and closed the door upon the outside world, before giving in completely to the tears flowing freely down her face. She'd leant back against the door and slid slowly onto the cold hard floor.

She wasn't certain how long she had sat there, but the apartment was in darkness before she managed to climb back to her feet and make her way shakily across to the kitchen. She could feel nothing but a hollow sense of numbness; she had literally cried herself out. She wasn't certain if the tears she had cried had only been for the overwhelming sense of anger and loss that had washed over her. The simple sight of a passport bearing her own name had been difficult to comprehend. It had sat there tantalizingly close to her, telling her that if she wanted it, her old life was hers. But it wouldn't be; it could never be. Everything had changed.

A part of her had spent two years hoping to hear something from her former colleagues at Thames House; she'd scanned the net, looked for messages in The Times and told herself that it didn't matter, when once again, the search proved fruitless. But she'd never truly been able to bury the hope that one day she would hear something. Now that contact had been made and it had left her more shaken than she'd ever imagined.

She pulled a bottle of wine from the rack in the corner of the kitchen and retreated to her small living room. Curling up beneath a blanket on the sofa she had sat there, in the dark, and tried to get her head around everything that had been said. It was all over; the last two years of living in a state of limbo, of not feeling as though she had a place in the world. Over.

But at what cost? Adam was gone... and Zaf. Her thoughts took her back to her last night in London; sat freezing on the banks of the Thames. He'd been with her then, telling her that it was all going to be ok; that they were going to sort everything out for her. She'd made him promise that if they ever passed on the street again, that he'd smile at her. It was such a simple thing to request from him, but something that she'd never have the chance to experience. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe that he was gone.

She pulled the blanket tighter around herself as the cold of the night pervaded her apartment. That wasn't the only loss. She closed her eyes as she thought of the other news that she'd received. One of the things that had gotten her through the aching loneliness that had accompanied the first few months of her exile, had been the thought that there was still a house in Cheltenham that contained the remnants of her family and her past; that still carried the memories of who she had been. It was one of the few things that she'd had to hold onto during the past two years, one of the only constants in her life that she could completely rely on remaining unchanged. And now she'd heard that that was gone. Another part of her life wiped out, another piece of her world removed.

She was pulled out of her revere by the sound of footsteps echoing on the frozen pavement behind her. They were steady, unhurried; not the nervous, expectant pace of a street mugger. She sighed heavily before calling out. "I wondered just how long it would take you to work it out."

She noted the way that the steps behind her slowed slightly before resuming their steady pace again, and she allowed herself a thin smile of satisfaction; her tail had obviously not been expecting her to notice his presence.

"You don't seem all that surprised to see me," a male voice floated forward.

She recognised the voice as belonging to the man she had met previously and struggled to remember his name.

"When did the service ever respect the wishes of the individual?" she remarked hollowly as the man fell into step at her side. "Actually, I expected you yesterday...standards must be slipping."

"I'll admit it took a while to find you."

Ruth stopped and turned to look up at the figure at her side, catching his profile in the light thrown out from a nearby streetlight, confirming that it was indeed the man she had met at Grand Central.

"Why bother finding me? I thought I made myself clear the last time we met." She looked searchingly at him. "...Or is there something else that you're not telling me?" Her eyes widened and she shook her head slowly as she backed a few paces away, wanting to put some distance between herself and Lucas as though that could prevent anything he said from affecting her. What else was it that he hadn't told her? What else was it that he was keeping from her? She swallowed hard, a sick feeling forming in the pit of her stomach.

Lucas held up his hands. "No more surprises," he told her quickly.

"So why are you here?" she made no attempt to keep the accusing tone out of her voice. She wanted him to go; his presence in her life again only served to remind her of the news she had recently received. She'd pushed down her emotions and managed to get to the store and back without that wave of loss washing over her again. Facing him here, so close to the place that she now called home, felt like an invasion. She wanted him out of her life as quickly as possible; she didn't want to dwell on those feelings of loss that were threatening to overwhelm her again.

"You couldn't think that I'd leave you just like that?"

Ruth let out a short laugh. "The service isn't exactly renowned for its caring, sharing side."

"Jo would never speak to me again if I didn't try at least one more time to make contact."

Ruth closed her eyes and wished that she'd followed through on her original plan. She'd dragged herself off of the sofa at some time in the early hours of the morning. The pale fingers of dawn had been forcing their way through the slatted blinds that covered the window as she'd made her way into the bedroom and pulled her battered suitcases from beneath the bed. It had become a routine now, to pick up, to pack and to move on to somewhere new. She'd been doing it all her life; ever since the death of her father when she'd been packed off to school. If something was too hard to deal with, it was better to just move away from it, to bury it deep and to move on.

She turned on her heel and began walking away from Lucas, wishing that she could make him understand that she wasn't interested in talking to him.

He broke off from whatever it was he had been saying and hurried to catch up with her. She sighed heavily.

"I suppose it was too much to hope that you'd take the hint," she told him bluntly.

"We have to talk," he told her, and she felt as though she wanted to scream at him. Who was he to dictate the timings to her? Who was he to tell her that now was the time to talk? Her pace slowed as she neared the front of her building. There was going to be no shaking him until he'd said his piece. If she could make it through the meeting, she could send him on his way and then be on hers again. She stopped and turned to face him. "Now you're here, I suppose that you'd best come on up....invited this time" Still not making eye contact with him, she moved away.

Lucas watched her as she headed away from him. He'd been hoping that she'd have lowered the defences a little by now, but if anything, she seemed harder to reach than before.

He looked up at the apartment building; it had seen better days. There was nominally a secure entry system but in reality it was out of order – the main door to the building was crashing back and forth against its frame in the gusting winds. Ruth seemed not to care though and picked her way along the overgrown path and into the relative warmth of the lobby. He followed her, taking care not to tread on the broken glass that littered the pathway.

She was leaning against the door when he reached it, holding it open. "Go on up; I'm sure you know the way," she told him pointedly.

"I haven't been through your apartment," He assured her as he moved past her and made his way across the lobby.

She shook her head. "Seems I was right, standards are slipping." She turned a sharp left and shifted the bags to one hand and pulled on the heavy fire door. "Don't even think about trying to use the lift; I think the last time it worked; Regan was still in the White House," she called back over her shoulder as she began to climb the stairs. Lucas took a breath and set off after her.

Upon reaching the sixth floor, she led him down a dimly lit corridor towards her apartment. The main light in the hallway was broken, and only the faint glimmer from the streetlight outside the window illuminated the way forward. He watched her as she moved down the passageway, not seeming to notice the state of the place. Her keys were in her hand by the time she reached the door; the first deadbolt key poised, ready to fit the lock; all part of an obviously well honed security routine.

He noticed a small folded white scrap of paper flutter towards the floor as she turned the final lock and pushed open the door to her apartment.

"Worried about unwanted visitors?" He questioned as she disappeared from view; surprised that she was still employing such tactics.

"Landlord," she told him without glancing back over her shoulder. "Seems to think he can come and take a look round the place anytime that he wants. Doesn't mean that he'll ever fix the heating though." She paused for a beat. "It was good of you to replace the paper after your visit."

"I didn't search your apartment," he called after her but she appeared not to hear him. He shook his head and followed her in

The first thing that struck him about the apartment was a strange sense of déjà vu. There was something almost familiar about the place, and it took him a few seconds to realise what the apartment reminded him of...a safe house. He'd always hated them; bland soulless places that were devoid of any sense of identity or personalisation. As his eyes scanned the meagre contents of the apartment, the impression became greater.

He looked guiltily at Ruth as he realised that she had noticed him checking out her apartment.

"Didn't you get a good enough look at it when you were searching the place?" she demanded to know.

Lucas sighed. "Contrary to what you may believe, I haven't been in your apartment. I wasn't hiding outside in the bushes waiting for you to leave so that I could look around here."

"So, why were you hiding in the bushes?"

Lucas smiled. "I wasn't hiding in the bushes. I was sitting in a rental car, waiting to see if you were home."

Ruth shrugged her shoulders. "Well, now you've found me; congratulations, you've done your job. Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?" She turned her back on him again.

"I know you've got a lot to work through..."

"Oh do you? ... good for you. Thank you for being so damned understanding." She shook her head. "You stand here and you tell me you know what I'm going through....You haven't got a clue."

Lucas opened his mouth to say something but Ruth turned back to face him and held up a hand.

"No, no...I think it's about time that I had the chance to say this to someone." She glanced up towards the ceiling. "Do you know what I've been doing for the past two years? Do you? I've been working in grotty little places for a grotty little wage, because have you any idea what my CV looks like? Oh yes, yes there was a legend, but thrown together in such a hurry that hardly any of it stands up to scrutiny." She paced back and forth across the tiny kitchen. "But do you know the worst part of it? Two years...two years I've spent lying to every single person I've met. Do you know what that's like? It's not an op... it's not cover. These aren't people out to upset the balance of power in the country, and I don't get to send little coded messages back to the real world, telling them how it's all going at the end of the day. This is real; this is the only life that I have and these are just normal people just going about their boring little everyday routine. I meet someone... get to know them... and god help them, like a normal human being, they tell me a little something about themselves." She paused, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly as she sought to put into words the emotions she had gone through. "You know what I do then? You know what I do to every person who reveals a little something about themselves to me? I lie...I lie to them about everything, about who I am, where I come from, everything. After a while I find that I just can't do it anymore; can't walk into a shop, or a job or a bar and just lie to these people...." she tailed off, as though she thought that she was saying too much. "There isn't a greater good to fight for, or a conspiracy to uncover; it's just me lying... Lie upon lie upon lie. After a while... I just can't do it..."

"So you move on?" Lucas finished the sentence for her.

Ruth nodded and turned back to the counter blindly pulling items out of the carriers, determined not to let Lucas see that her emotions were getting the better of her.

"How many times have you moved?" he asked her quietly.

"Does it matter?"

He shook his head. "I guess not."

Her hands left the half-emptied bags and gripped the counter top.

"I'm not sure I know who I am anymore. I did all the things they teach us to do; to hide away every little thing that makes you, you and place it inside this little box so that no-one can find it. What they don't tell you is what to do when one day someone tells you can open that box again, and you look inside and you're not sure that you recognise yourself anymore? What are you supposed to do then?"

Lucas shook his head slowly as he began to realise the toll that the last two years must have had on the woman he was with. He'd read her file and listened to Jo talk about her. The woman he'd met today bared little resemblance to that person. He realised just how much of an impact his meeting with her must have had and wished that he'd handled the situation differently.

Uncertain of what to say; he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the envelope he'd presented her with in the cafe.

He placed it down on the table in the middle of the living room. She turned at the sound and shook her head when she realised what he was doing.

"Oh no," she told him sharply. "You can pick that back up."

"I'll leave it here...I think you may need it."

"Pick it up. I don't want it."

"Take some time, think about it."

Ruth let out a short bark of a laugh. "What do you think I've been doing for the past three days...painting my nails!" She shook her head. "What is there left for me to go back to? ...Can you answer me that? I have no home, no possessions, no family, no job. I gave the service everything that I had and in return it's taken everything I held dear from me."

She looked Lucas straight in the eye and he found that he couldn't answer her.

She regarded him for a few seconds. "What is it? Run out of meaningless platitudes?"

"I think it's time you came home."

"To what?"

"A new life."

She looked at him; her face wearing an expression of defeat. "And do what exactly?"

The awkward silence in the room was broken by a knock at the door and Lucas noticed the way that Ruth started at the noise.

"I wasn't expecting anyone," she tried to explain away her jumpiness.

Lucas nodded towards the door. "I'll deal with it if you like."

"If it turns out to be my landlord....say something inappropriate."

The way that her mood seemed to jump from anger to flippancy and back again came as nothing of a surprise; he knew that she was fighting to deal with the news that she'd received and her flippancy was just another way of coping. He turned and headed back across the apartment to the front door.

Ruth listened as the door opened, trying to work out if it was her landlord once again making a nuisance of himself, but the voices were too low for her to hear what was being said. She left the half-emptied bags where they were on the counter and moved into the living room to stand at the window and look down on the activity that was taking place below on the street. She could pick out the people as they bustled by; each one caught up in their own life, not one of them imagining how it could all be thrown off kilter by one simple meeting, one simple exchange of words.

She heard the apartment door close and moments later the door to the living room opened again. She kept her attention focussed on the street below.

"Looking at them all down there going about their business without a care in the world; makes me wonder why I'm still here getting on with my life when so many others are dead," she admitted.

"I wouldn't call this living Ruth."

She froze; her eyes widening in shock as she recognised the speaker. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the sound of his voice.

"Ruth?"

She opened her mouth to reply but found that no words would come. She stood there mutely, her eyes fixed on the street below, her breath forming patterns on the frozen window.

"I'm sorry that our meeting is under such conditions..." he began but she cut him off.

"How dare you? How dare you come here and then just hide in the shadows…" she turned and glared at him, her eyes blazing with emotion; anger at his presence, mixed with sheer relief that he was still alive.

"I only arrived this morning. Lucas rang me after you managed to lose him the other day." There was the merest hint of a smile playing on Harry's lips at the thought that she'd been able to throw one of his agents off her trail quite so easily, it seemed she had learnt more than a little about tradecraft during her time on the Grid.

Silence fell between them and the smile dropped from his lips; he felt as though he was already losing sight of the purpose of his visit. He could see the anger and the hurt that was in her eyes and wished there was something he could do about it. He made to take a step forward but she flinched away and he remained where he was...

"So what was the plan? Send in the voice of objectiveness and then if that didn't work roll out the big guns!" She shook her head slowly. "Don't play games with me Harry, not after all this time."

"I'm not here to play games Ruth," he told her calmly. "I'm here to take you home."


	3. Chapter 3

Silence hung heavily in the air, like an extra presence in the room. They stood only a few feet apart from each other, but it was still a gap that neither of them felt able to cross.

Ruth stared, not quite believing that Harry was there in front of her. Lucas hadn't mentioned him during either of their conversations, and she'd reached the point where she'd become too scared to ask after him, in case the answer brought with it more anguish and loss. She'd had so much to take in during the past three days that she wasn't sure that she could cope with anymore.

Now he was here... in the flesh, in her apartment and she couldn't quite believe it.

"Lucas told me that you didn't take the passport." Harry finally broke the uncomfortable silence, his eyes searching out hers, but she refused to meet his, turning back to the window, one hand reaching for the bracelet on her wrist, nervously twisting the charms that were strung on it.

"Don't you want to come home?"

The hand left the bracelet and her fingers moved to rub the bridge of her nose.

"It's not as simple as what I want..."

"Why not?"

She let out an exclamation. "You can't just wave a magic wand and make everything better."

"Won't you let me at least try?"

"Everyone thinks I'm dead." Ruth felt as though she had to remind him of that fact. "If I bump into an old friend, I'm sure that the subject of my death is bound to crop up in the conversation sooner or later! What do I tell them? That I disappeared into the back of a wardrobe and spent the last two years in Narnia! Frankly I think that'd be more believable than the truth."

"You just tell them that the rumours of your death were greatly exaggerated," Harry told her as patiently as he could. "The service specialises in making people disappear; it's always a pleasant change when we're able to open up the magician's cabinet and bring someone back."

"It's not that simple," Ruth argued.

"Yes it is. We'll sort it all out. Believe me, people will ask fewer questions than you imagine."

"Maybe I'm not ready to come back."

"You have things keeping you here?"

"Just…just drop it, will you," she told him, a sharp tone to the edge of her voice.

An awkward silence settled in the air and Ruth bit her lip, wishing that she could take back her last comment. She'd not meant to snap at Harry, but she was frustrated with the way that he didn't seem to understand just how hard the whole situation was for her to deal with. He was standing there and talking to her as though nothing had changed.

She'd spent two years hoping that there would be a chance to come back to the real world; to pick up the threads of her life and to get back to something approaching the existence she had once known. What she hadn't envisaged was the way that the news, when she received it, would completely unsettle her. She'd known that life had been going on without her, but she hadn't considered just how much that life would change whilst she was gone.

She was reminded of something her course tutor at University had told her, when she was leaving and made a promise to come back and see him. Most people, he told her, made the promise to come back and most people forgot about it the moment that they were out in the real world. They were the people who got it right. It was always a mistake to go back, he told her. It was never a good experience to walk into a place that was once yours and to discover that someone else had now claimed it as their space and changed it to suit them. The place, although achingly familiar in so many ways, would also be distinctly different and the realisation would hit painfully home that that your time had passed and you no longer belonged.

It was never pleasant to feel like an outsider in a place that you had once called home. It was, he said, akin to coming home to find that your house had been taken over by squatters who cared nothing for the items that you cherished, and who looked at you with undisguised distain as you tried to point out the beauty that they were destroying. It was better to keep looking forward; it was better never to retread old ground for the fear of disappointment.

She finally understood what he had been getting at all those years ago. There was a very definite sense of fear building up inside of her. A worrisome voice continually questioned what it would feel like, going back to the Grid, knowing that someone else had been sitting at her desk, doing her job. She was replaceable; she knew that, had always known that. It was just a hard thing to confront sometimes.

There was also the paucity of familiar faces to contend with; so many losses, so many pointless losses. She'd had to deal with death on a scale she'd not been prepared for. Whilst sitting in her 'splendid isolation' at GCHQ, death had been a statistic, something to be dealt with and written down in documents as though it was simple dry fact. Working in Section D had brought her face to face with death on a much more personal level. Death was the end, people did not miraculously rise again; they were gone; vibrant human beings were gone but were not mourned, not publically at least.

It hurt to think that those very same people who had been instrumental in getting her to a place of safety were no longer alive; she was unable to see them again and thank them for everything that they'd done.

She'd stopped believing in happy endings at an early age, but on the rare occasions in the past two years that she'd allowed herself to think of a resolution to her exile, Adam and Zaf had been there. She always promised herself that she'd find some way to thank them for helping her, and now even that simple wish had been snatched away from her. They had gone and she'd never had the chance to say goodbye.

She raised her head and caught Harry's eyes watching her intently. She couldn't bring herself to imagine just how much he had lost over the years; it was a load that she was certain that she'd never be able to shoulder, and she wished she could silence the small voice in her head that asked what might have happened to change him in the past two years. She forced a half-smile she didn't believe in onto her face.

"Would you like a drink?"

The question sounded absurd in the circumstances, but Harry was relieved for the break in the tension that had been building.

"Thank you."

Ruth remained standing where she was and it took Harry a few moments to realise what the problem was. He was positioned between her and the kitchen. He gestured back towards it with a hand. "Would you like me to...?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

Reluctantly he turned his back on her, half expecting to feel her rush past him and make a break for the door. He'd picked up immediately on her fear; he supposed that he didn't blame her for being so on edge. She'd been presented with a great deal and he knew it would take time for her to work through it. He'd taken the phone call from Lucas following the first contact and had been disappointed with the reaction, although not completely surprised. He'd made the decision then to come out himself and to try and explain things further. If Lucas had been surprised by the news, then he'd wisely kept it to himself.

There was a bottle of red wine amongst the shopping on the counter and a quick search of the cupboards above the sink revealed two glasses. Harry bought his findings back into the living room and found Ruth, still clad in her long black coat, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring out of the window.

He offered her a glass but she made no effort to move to accept it, maintaining her vigil upon the street below.

He placed the glasses down on the table and poured out the wine. Picking up one of the glasses he took a seat on the sofa, trying again to ease the awkwardness a little.

"What have you been doing?"

She shrugged her shoulders, still not turning round to face him. "The translation work...which... obviously you know about... some proof-reading. Pretty much any sort of work I can do from my computer."

Harry nodded. "Doing anything to avoid actually working with people face to face?"

Ruth stiffened. "You may be happy to spend your whole life lying to people Harry but I just can't do that."

Silence fell between them. Harry took the opportunity to look at his surroundings. The apartment was small and in need of redecoration. The walls were a neutral beige colour and the furnishings functional and looking as though they had seen better days. When, during the past two years, he'd allowed himself to think of Ruth and what she might be doing, he had never pictured her in a small run-down apartment in Queens.

"Not exactly the Ritz I know." Ruth had turned her head at the prolonged silence and now followed his gaze. "But there's not much money to be made in the sort of work that I do."

"I'm sorry," he told her sincerely. "I didn't think it would be this hard."

"What, you thought I'd be sunning myself on some beach somewhere, enjoying the high life!"

"Not exactly."

"But not this either?"

"No," he admitted.

"Well there's not much work out there for an ex-intelligence analyst with a legend that has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese," she told him sharply. "And let's be honest, what job is going to compare to the sort of work I had been doing?"

"There **is** an answer to that..."

She cut him off before he could get any further.

"I did look at trying to get an office job. You should have seen some of the interviews I had to sit through. I'd get so frustrated with the absurdity of the interview process. They'd ask me stupid questions about my ability to cope in a crisis - when their idea of a crisis was the photocopier running out of paper. I did end up laughing in the face of one of the interviewers when he placed so much emphasis on his office being a stressful place to work….Needless to say, I didn't get the job."

"Ruth..."

"And then there was the problem of referees. It was all well and good making them up and setting up the fake email accounts and websites; the real problem came when I had to write a reference for myself, detailing what I'd been doing for the past ten years....far enough away from fact not to make it traceable to me, but not too far removed to make it seem unfeasible." She let out a half-laugh. "I know that everyone lies on their CV, but this seemed ridiculous."

"Ruth, please..."

She finally ran out of steam and her gaze dropped to her hands, studying her nails intently as though they were the most fascinating things she'd ever seen.

Harry sighed inwardly as he watched her shut him out again. He had known that the meeting was going to be difficult; Lucas had warned him of the state that Ruth was in, but still he'd been hoping that things would go a little better. She was playing for time; trying to keep her mind off the real subject by throwing up a barrier; talking about the first thing that came into her head to avoid confronting the main issues that were affecting her. He knew that she couldn't bare the silence; silence meant that she had to face the reality of the things that he was offering her; she had to think about the offer that he'd placed in front of her and try and come to terms with the news that Lucas had told her three days earlier.

Harry looked around at the room again, wanting to avoid being the one to break the silence, wanting Ruth to be the one to make the next step. His confidence was failing and he didn't want, at this stage, to overstep the mark and say something that would drive her away forever.

He glanced round at the room and realised that there was something that didn't seem quite right; something was missing. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was that triggered his suspicion, but the moment that the thought surfaced in his mind, he knew that he was right.

"You're moving on again, aren't you?" He voiced the question despite his earlier resolution.

The look of guilt that flashed across Ruth's face was enough to tell him that his guess had been correct. She was quick to suppress the expression but he had seen it.

"What are you running from this time?" he asked her, wondering just how close they'd been to letting her slip through their fingers again.

"What does it matter to you?" there was an edge to her reply.

"You have to ask?"

Ruth looked down at her hands again, nervously twisting the ring on her finger.

"Yes….Yes I think that I do….It's been two years Harry. Two years…. You're not going to try and tell me that nothing's happened to you in the last two years?"

"Nothing this important."

"Harry…don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't do...this. Don't act as though nothing has changed."

"It hasn't….at least, not for me."

"Well maybe you haven't noticed....maybe it's escaped your legendary powers of observation...but a few things have changed for me."

"Ruth, please..."

"Please what? Be the person I was two years ago? I don't think that's possible."

"Aren't you even prepared to try?"

"I've been living in what feels like a kind of limbo for the past two years...never feeling as though I belonged to anything, never feeling as though I really fitted in. Do you know what I used to do? Do you know what I used to do when I wanted to feel as though I belonged? I used to go to the theatre." She shot a glance in Harry's direction, checking that he wasn't laughing at her. "I'd go and I'd sit there in the dark... and for a couple of hours at least I felt as though I was a part of something bigger...part of a shared experience. I'd sit there and watch them up on stage, playing their parts and making it all look so effortless... as though taking on a new identity was the most natural thing in the world." She paused and looked down at her hands. "And then the lights would go up and I'd be plunged back into the real world...this bright space of light...the chairs around me tipping up as everyone departed in search of ice-cream or overpriced wine...and the illusion would be lost and I'd just be me again...on my own...belonging to nothing and nowhere." She sighed heavily. "I'd see them sometimes... afterwards...the actors, walking away from the theatre, all traces of the character lost, being themselves again and I used to envy them that."

"You have that chance again," Harry tried to press home the point but Ruth shook her head.

"Do I... really...There are always going to be people who'll look at me and ask themselves...did she really do it? And if she did....what's to stop her doing it again."

"Ruth, you're not telling me that you care what a few suspicious, small-minded people at GCHQ might think?" Harry chided her; frustrated that she'd managed again to turn the conversation away from the personal.

"I just don't want to spend the rest of my life as the subject of some covert surveillance team from MI6."

"You won't."

"Oh what, so you'll sort that as well?"

"If I have to."

"There are people out there who think that I'm a murderer and a traitor to my country...some of them probably members of my own family...Are you telling me that they are just going to accept my reappearance without question?"

"Ruth, trust me when I say that it's going to be alright."

"What are you going to do? Get them to print a retraction in The Times?"

"I'm not sure I could swing The Times...The Mail perhaps!"

"Stop laughing at me Harry."

Harry held up his hands to apologise as he heard the genuine tone of hurt in Ruth's voice. "I'm not laughing at you, I just need you to understand that it's not going to be as hard as you think...yes you made the news, yes you ran up your fair share of column inches and yes some kind hearted soul at the BBC dug up the edition of University Challenge you were on...but it's all long forgotten...events have moved on."

"What... and I'm just yesterday's news?"

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that but I think it's safe to say that you could walk down Oxford Street without being mobbed."

"You talk as though you expect me to be able to change overnight," Ruth countered. "There isn't a timetable for this. There isn't one that says 'Sunday – life turned completely on its head. Monday - get up, get over it and move on'..."

"Most people would at least make the effort."

"What have I got to go back for?" She asked him. "I haven't even got a cold empty house to go back to."

"Right, that's enough. This stops now." Harry rose to his feet. "I think I've listened to just about all I can take. If you were to stop with the self-pity for just one moment and to look at the contents of the envelope Lucas has tried on two separate occasions to give you, you would see that inside are the deeds to a certain house in Ealing," Harry paused and caught the disbelief in her eyes, pleased to see that he was finally getting her attention. "Your mother just wanted things sorted out and so she accepted the offer of a company that promised it could dispose of the property without a fuss. The property was duly sold at auction and the new owners let the place out to a professional couple at a very reasonable rate, with the caveat that they had to vacate the property within a week if so instructed." He snatched the envelope up from the table, noting the way that Ruth flinched at the sudden movement. He pulled a sheaf of papers from the buff envelope and dropped them on the table. "There's also this," he pulled a yellow credit card sized object free and added it to the pile. "It opens a storage vault in West Acton where your belongings are stored. Don't ask how, but the rental on the storage facility is drawn every month from the paycheque of one O. Mace," he paused again. "Also Malcolm's doing. So whilst you may be content to sit here and play the friendless martyr, there are people back in London who never gave up on you, even if you gave up on yourself...and them."

The sound of choked sobs reached Harry's ears and he felt his heart sink; he hadn't wanted to drive her to such a state but he'd known that she needed to get past the barrier that she'd thrown up around herself. He needed to get through to the raw emotion beneath.

"Ruth, I..."

"When did she die?" Ruth's voice was suddenly quiet; missing all the anger of earlier.

Harry bit his lip, not wanting to be the one to broach the subject.

"How long?" the question came again.

"Ruth, please,"

"How long?" Ruth repeated. "I need to know."

Harry's gaze dropped to the floor. "Your mother died about four months after you left."

He heard the stifled sob and looked up to see the way that her shoulders were starting to shake. He didn't want to carry on with the details but knew that she needed to hear the truth. Before he had a chance to speak, she broke the silence.

"Every time I felt as though I didn't want to go on with this lying anymore; every time I felt as though I'd had enough of running away from everything I'd ever known, I'd sit there and I'd think of her... think of her safe at home in Cheltenham, surrounded by the stifling normality of it all and it would give me a kind of... peace, just to know that there was still a part of my life that was normal, that hadn't in some way been tainted by the job. All this time and I never knew that she was dead."

"You kept her alive in your heart and that was important."

"Was it?"

"Of course it was."

She let out an ironic laugh. "But it was a lie, wasn't it. A lie just like every other part of my life. She never even knew what I did for a living." She wiped at her eyes. "Peter she could be proud of; Peter… with his drinking and…everything else; **him** she could be proud of. Me…." she let out a choked laugh. "I sat in an office and did….who knew what. I just wish once I could have told her what I did, convinced her that I hadn't thrown my life away by ending up in some dead end job."

"Isn't that what you're doing now… throwing it all away?"

Ruth buried her head in her hands. "I don't know what I'm doing. It's all… just… such a mess."

Harry took a step closer. "Come home," he encouraged her again.

"What? And have my breakdown on the NHS!"

Harry's mouth twitched in frustration, she was immediately building back up the barrier between them.

"Think about it."

"I'd just be exchanging one featureless room for another."

"Then stay with me."

She shook her head. "I don't think that's wise."

"And that changes anything?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe for me. …You drop this on me and just expect me to deal with it…You've had time to think about it…I wasn't even sure if you were alive, much less skulking outside on the pavement."

"Ruth…I didn't need time to thi…" he tailed off as he realised what she'd said. "…. I was not skulking…I do not skulk."

The tone of indignation in his voice brought a smile to her lips; it was there only fleetingly but it gave Harry a glimmer of hope.

"Ruth," he spoke her name again and watched her flinch. All the times that he'd run through the scenario of meeting her again, it had never been like this. He'd played the scene a hundred different ways and every one ended up with the two of them able to conquer whatever differences had grown up between them. He didn't want to have to face the very real possibility that she'd never come back.

"Maybe I'm tired of being wise, maybe I'm tired of spending Christmas on my own," he told her, deciding that honesty was the only way to go. "Maybe I want the chance to spend the day with someone I love." It felt odd hearing the word on his lips, but once he'd said it, it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Maybe I want someone to watch the Queen's speech with, someone to point out all the things that have happened in the year that she's neglected to mention, to list all the holes that we have dug them out of without ever receiving a word of thanks...." he tailed off, needing some input from her.

Her eyes widened at his choice of words. "Why are you here telling me all this now? ...Why now...what's so special about now? Why not last week, last month....why now?"

Harry wished there was some way of calming her down and convincing her that there was no ulterior motive; that they were contacting her now because this was the first time that they'd managed to find her. He could understand her bewilderment; her world had once again been completely turned on its head.

"Come home," he told her again gently.

"I can't do this," she told him, her words falling quickly. "I can't get any of it straight in my head. It's…it's too much…Nothing, nothing in my life for two years and then to try and take in all this….I'm not sure that I can…"

He watched as she closed her eyes, he could see the tears start to form in the corners as she fought to keep control of her emotions.

"I'm not promising you that it's going to be easy," he told her softly. "I'm not promising you that there won't be times where you'll feel completely out of your depth, but I am promising you that I'm going to be there every step of the way. You are not doing this alone... not this time."

Ruth raised her eyes and for the first time didn't look away.

"I'm not walking away from this Ruth."

"I can't go back," She told him quietly.

"Ruth."

"I can't go back to lying to people Harry. I just don't think I can do that anymore."

"Then don't." He read the confusion in her eyes. "This offer isn't tied into you coming back onto the Grid," he explained. "There are no expiry dates, no terms and conditions; no reading of the small print necessary...What I'm here to offer you...It's unconditional..."

She shook her head again. "I don't know if I can...I feel so... lost," she told him quietly, not wanting to admit to such a feeling of helplessness. "Like...like I'm standing in the eye of a storm, watching it rage and fly around me and I just don't know how I'm going to match its pace. I've been marking time for so long I don't know if I remember how to move."

"It's easy," Harry told her taking a slow step forward. "All you need in a storm is something to hold onto...a place to take shelter."

She held his gaze and he saw the tears prick in the corner of her eyes again and closed the gap between them, reaching out and hoping that she wouldn't push him away. A slow smile spread over his face as he pulled her into an embrace and she didn't flinch away. He felt her body shake as the tears started to fall again and he held her closer.

"No-one says we have to leave the eye of the storm just yet," he told her softly. "We can stay here for as long as you want - within the still point. We can wait out the storm...as long as it takes."


End file.
